Well I'm a very similar age to Prince Charles. I'm a year older than him. I was at university at the same time as him. I think in the sixties, like all the Royals, he really had very little impact on my life at all and he seemed, if anything a lot older in his attitudes.

It was delightful but, of course, it was pretty insulting to my professional reputation.

Thatcher came under pressure from right wing backbenchers to shut up the Prince of Wales and there was a deal done between them where he did actually shut up in the end.

As somebody who's been writing about this subject for getting on twenty years now, it's astonishing how the climate has changed in the last five years.

The good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. The bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them.

If you have an anecdote from one source, you file it away. If you hear it again, it may be true. Then the more times you hear it the less likely it is to be true.

I think the relation between the monarchy and the press is very much a two-way street.